US Copper Firms Hike Prices Even After Trump Tariff Reprieve

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(Bloomberg) -- Major US producers of electrical wire are raising prices just weeks after a surprise decision by President Donald Trump to exempt the most basic copper imports from tariffs, suggesting that American consumers may end up paying more even after metal prices plunged.
Southwire Co. LLC, one of the largest makers of copper wire and cable in the US, and Cerro Wire LLC, a wiremaker owned by Berkshire Hathaway Inc., in recent days announced price increases of 5% across a range of copper wire products, according to a Bloomberg calculation based on their published price sheets.
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The move shows how a small group of low-profile companies that own US copper-processing plants are likely to be the primary beneficiaries of Trump's shock tariff reprieve.
The president's decision to apply his 50% import tariff only to manufactured goods containing copper such as wires and cables, and not to unprocessed refined copper as widely expected, means companies like Southwire and Cerrowire will now be paying much less than they feared for the metal they purchase. At the same time, the import tariff on copper containing goods raises costs for their international competitors shipping products to the US.
And until the US builds more copper processing plants, the added cost on the hundreds of thousands of tons of copper-containing goods it imports each year is likely to be inflationary for US consumers despite a sharp drop in domestic prices for copper itself, analysts say.
'While wire and cable prices are influenced by copper prices, they are not the same. The margin between the two can widen if local producers have more pricing power,' said Aisling Hubert, senior wire and cable analyst at consultancy CRU Group. The tariff means that US producers will have the upper hand in price negotiations with their customers, she said.
It's not clear whether the price increases were a direct response to the tariff decision, and it's likely to take some time before the full effects on the market are clear.
Domestic prices for copper wire and cable — used in almost every building, electronic device, and power utility — had already risen sharply before Trump's decision, according to US government data. An index of prices that forms part of the calculation of producer price inflation hit a record high in July, up 12% from a year earlier.
Neither Southwire nor Cerrowire responded to requests for comment. Southwire, which is one of the largest importers of refined copper into the US, lobbied against tariffs on refined copper imports in a letter to the Department of Commerce earlier this year.
Massimo Battaini, chief executive of Prysmian SpA, which together with Southwire dominates the US wire and cable market, said the tariff decision had been a relief and would likely mean higher profits for his company.
Speaking on a conference call with analysts the day after the announcement, he said: 'Local producers, like we are, will benefit from cost of cables imported from overseas much higher than today. So this will certainly benefit our guidance, our forecast for the full year.'
The US imported 810,000 tons of unprocessed copper last year, accounting for 45% of the country's consumption of 1.8 million tons, according to US Geological Survey data.
While those imports are spared from tariffs, the US also imports hundreds of thousands of tons of copper-containing goods, which are now set to be subject to 50% duties. That includes semi-processed products like copper rod, pipe, tube and sheet, and finished goods like cables. Of the total US cable demand last year, 23% was met by imports.
To be sure, US companies may invest in more domestic capacity to replace imports, reducing the inflationary effect of the tariff. Cable imports would be 'difficult to replace in the short term' but new capacity for low-voltage cable can be built in 1-2 years, said Hubert at CRU.
What's more, there's significant uncertainty about how broadly the tariffs will be applied. It isn't clear whether imports from Canada and Mexico, two of the main sources of imports of copper products, would be exempt from the new tariffs under the free trade agreement between the three countries, according to Hubert.
Analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co. said that the US was significantly less dependent on imports of copper products than on refined copper, making the buildout of additional domestic capacity 'likely relatively achievable in the coming years.' Still, they predicted 'higher end-use prices' in the meantime.
Peter Schmitz, director of global copper markets research at Wood Mackenzie, said that copper accounted for about two thirds of the cost of a cable and 20%-30% of the cost of an electrical motor.
'Is it inflationary? Yes it is,' he said of the tariffs. 'Ultimately somebody pays; that is going to be the American consumer.'
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